


A Little Faith, A Little Trust

by Skullfuggery (OverwatchingYouSleep)



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game), Halloween Movies - All Media Types
Genre: American Sign Language, Fluff, Hotel Employees, M/M, Male Slash, Slow Burn, Threats of Violence, Unmasked Michael, Work Release AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 08:04:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverwatchingYouSleep/pseuds/Skullfuggery
Summary: An open heart heals more than a closed mind.





	A Little Faith, A Little Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the beginning of my newest horrible obsession. :') This is currently Gender Neutral! Reader/Michael Myers, but if this story goes in a NSFW direction (which I expect) then it'll be AMAB/Male Reader unless there's enough demand for me to write an AFAB / Fem version of it as well.
> 
> Small edit: fixed a minor ASL error pointed out by a helpful commenter ^^

You were no stranger to, well, strange things.  
  
You had only been in the line of hotel work for barely a year, yet you had come across more interesting and memorable faces in your line of work than you had in the rest of your life. And shockingly, a majority of them weren’t the guests.

Though you couldn’t place who in management struck the deal, somehow a partnership between this business and Smith's Grove Sanitarium had formed, and the menial staff positions were slowly and steadily filled with the criminally insane. Some staff were reasonably pissed by this, and you weren’t surprised in the least bit when some of them quit.

However, you trusted the program would come to an end if a patient tried anything violent, and your trust proved right. The Sanitarium did a good job of sending over its most stable patients, and any that did act out were quickly whisked back to the Sanitarium, the outburst costing them their freedom and helping you rest easy.

But it didn’t help that you had grown attached to a couple of those poor souls.

The night shift saw less patient fill-ins, due to the strict schedule the Sanitarium held. But it was prime time for the anti-social patients, the ones who could be trusted around people, but not too many people. At the front desk you got to meet every one, folks from all walks of life and with interesting quirks in their behavior. Your patience helped a lot, and soon you found yourself a favorite of nearly every patient, most of your shift filled with sporadic conversations with your crew.

But then you got word of the newest addition to your crew.

“You think a security job is really the best choice..?” you questioned your boss just beside the front door, where he had caught you on your way out.

“It’s just watching cameras in the elevators and hallways. No weapons, no altercations.” Punctuating his last word with a glance at the elevators just off the side of the lobby, where not a month ago you watched two janitors clean blood off the floor from such an “altercation.” He gave you a smile, but even he couldn’t put much into it. “The doctor I spoke with, he--he said that he thinks some human interaction would go a long way for this guy, and I don’t like his record--”

“What’s his record?”

“--but if this is what the doctor wants, I want to help him out. He’s nev--” He quickly corrected himself, “--rarely done me wrong before. And I’ll tell you later, but hey!” He clapped your shoulder and started to back away from the conversation, obviously in no hurry to answer your question. “Get excited, you’ll meet your new co-worker tonight.”

He turned and walked away, leaving you to absorb the info. He hadn’t told you a name either, perhaps purposefully, so you couldn’t do your own research. You were in the dark, and could only hope the new face you met tonight would be as amiable, or at least as harmless as the familiar ones.

“Well,” you told yourself, turning and walking through the heavy front doors. “It can’t possibly be that bad.”

-

Your half-hearted words had actually turned out right. The man who stood in front of you, _“Michael”_ embroidered on the pocket of his black uniform shirt, certainly cut an imposing figure. The blank stare he held, constantly tense from the scar tissue surrounding his milky left eye certainly didn’t help either, but beyond the initial and mostly silent introductions he didn’t seem to have any further impressions to make. He retreated to his new office, and the day manager left you to your devices.

You had yet to deal with a patient that was as silent as he was, but when compared to the neurotic and outright hostile attitudes you had seen in the others, his quietness was almost welcoming. The security guard from the afternoon only stayed for a short half hour to show him the ropes before leaving for the night. Just you, the mysterious Michael in the office behind you, and the cleaning staff that bustled about.

Usually they chatted you up, livened the night with their eccentricities. But the new staff member seemed to have everyone on edge, especially other patients from the Sanitarium. You could only guess what that was about. Maybe your new co-worker was the creeper type, or the silent but deadly type, or...well, until you made an effort to know him, he could really be anything.

Quietly, you leaned back in your chair and peered into the security office. His posture was relaxed at first glance, chin in palm as he leaned over the desk, but the harder you looked the more you realized how his jaw sat tense and his shoulders rigid. From where you sat you could see his still-functioning eye, a much richer blue than the pale haze of the other, vacantly focused on the computer screens in front of him.

“So Michael,” you started. Your voice barely scratched the surface of his attention. If it wasn’t for the sideways glance he gave after a few seconds, you would have thought he hadn’t heard you at all. “You seem like a quiet guy.”

No response; not even a cursory raise of an eyebrow. Part of you felt like you were trespassing into his space, like he would rather be doing anything in the world other than talking to you. But if you were ready to give up that easily, you wouldn’t be friends with the entire night crew.

“Do you not speak English, is that it?” you asked. His dead stare didn’t change, but slowly he shook his head back and forth, stray blonde hairs whizzing about as they fell out of his loose bun. You pursed your lips. “What about sign language?”

His eyes narrowed the slightest bit before relaxing again. Another shake of the head. You glanced over the lobby to confirm nobody was waiting for service before you rolled your chair fully inside the doorway. “Well, would you be interested in learning a bit?”

Again his eyelids lowered, but this look felt more ominous, like he was weighing out in his head whether or not to trust you. You could understand his feelings; coming from a place like Smith’s Grove you had to believe that the world was against you. Certainly you had to overcome your own misconceptions when the first arrivals showed up, and now you had more patience than a saint in dealing with them. But you could see why he wouldn’t expect that, why a kind and genuine offer would fill him with suspicion. 

“Here,” you turned your body to face him and folded your legs in your office chair, holding your hands palm-out for him. “It’s usually easiest to start with the alphabet, so you can spell out any words you don’t know. I can even print you out a chart; would that be okay?”

It was slow, but eventually his body turned to face yours as well, hands resting tensely on his thighs. Everything about his posture said nervous, but the look on his face gave nothing away. It was less like an anxiety, and more like a defense, a solid wall he was putting up around himself that had taken years to build. It almost hurt your heart to realize just how little Michael trusted the outside world, but moreover it filled your heart with hope to think that maybe you could be what changed that.

“Okay,” you smiled, “Let’s start from the top.”

\---

Over the next week of work days you learned two important things about Michael. One was that he was an incredibly fast learner and picked things up almost instantly. The other; he had a lot more personality than he had initially led you to believe.

It made your heart swell with pride every night he came in, addressing you with a nod as he walked back into his office and sat ready for his lesson when you made the time to see him. If the night was busy and you couldn’t make time in the first few hours, he would come and tug on your sleeve, a silent request for your attention that you always answered. His alphabet chart was pinned between two work safety posters, and he was making ample use of it, signing letters to himself while you were taking care of your nightly duties.

And when you did come in to teach him, he would drop everything to face you. He wasn’t smiling, not yet at least, but it would’ve taken a blind man to miss the new glow in his eye that had blossomed ever since he had started learning with you. There was a certain joy to be had in knowing you had given him a new, comfortable avenue of communication when previously there was none. And he was making use of it too.

_“SLOW NIGHT.”_

“Mhm,” you agreed, leaning out of his office to look over the empty lobby. The other staff had not warmed up to Michael the same way you had, meaning they kept themselves as far away from the lobby as they could. You had yet to ask why they were so afraid of him, but you didn’t want to step on any toes by asking the other patients, and you definitely didn’t want to put a dent in your progress by asking Michael. You figured that if it was relevant, it would come up in due time.

“I think there’s a baseball game early this morning, so I might get swarmed around 5 am,” you observed, wiping a smudge off the face of your watch. “Which leaves us an hour. Want to learn a couple more words tonight?”

He brushed his hand over his forehead when he nodded, tucking his stray curly locks behind his ears. You clapped your hands and rubbed them together. “Alright then, why don’t we learn some words about the Sanitarium?”

His brow furrowed but just when his expression made you think the topic was too sore to cover, he gave a slow nod. Regardless his somber gaze wiped most of the enthusiasm from your face. You decided with a slight gulp that the subject required a much more serious attitude.

“Okay, so let’s start with Sanitarium.” The word of course didn’t have a direct translation, but you didn’t want to risk any bad blood by admitting the closest sign you knew was ‘Asylum.’ You tapped your finger to the side of your head, and moved it down to your arm, where you flicked your fingers in two distinct gestures. “Need to see it again?”

You don’t know why you bothered asking; he never did. He mirrored your action perfectly eye following his own hand as he committed its motion to his mind. After another, faster repeat his stare was back on you, ready to move on.

“Perfect,” you said, nodding your head. “Now, doctor is a little more simple.”

For the first time, you saw Michael’s face contort in plain emotion, and it was pure disgust. The curl of his lip was small, but the difference was stark when combined with his glower and scrunched brow. You froze in your chair, and he quickly rose his hands and repeated signs you had taught him prior.

_“TEACH ME.”_

Unable to help your squirm beneath his hard stare, you steeled your right arm enough to hold it out in front of you, forming the letter "D" with your left hand and tapping it against the underside of your wrist. “That’s ‘Doctor.’ “

He repeated the motion as usual this time but slower, truly focused on the word you had just given him. It was obvious there was something dark there, and against your better judgment you opened your mouth to speak. “What’s wrong with the doctors?”

His lone eye snapped up to you, shadows cast over the dark bags that hung beneath his eyelids. With a deliberate slowness that sent a chill across your neck and arms, he raised his hand and began slowly spelling a name.

_“L-O-O-M-I-S.”_

It was vaguely familiar, a figure that had come up in the Sanitarium deal but nobody you had personally met, or even knew anything about other than that he was an employee at Smiths Grove. Face pinched in worrisome tension, you slid your chair forward a bit. “What did Loomis do to you, Michael?”

He pressed his lips together, and after a moment of thought he raised his hand straight and waved it stiffly between his chest and yours.

_“THIS STAYS BETWEEN US.”_

“Of course,” you agreed. With your confirmation Michael broke into a frenzy of signing, waving his arms around in a series of words you most certainly did NOT teach him, starting with two pointed horns on either temple.

_“DEVIL._  
_HATE HIM. HURT HIM_  
_STAB._  
_BEHEAD._  
_MURDER.”_

You felt the blood drain from your face, in disbelief at what you were seeing. Michael had never seemed happy or even content, but you couldn’t have guessed that this much rage hid so shallowly beneath the surface of his skin. But despite his incensed words the fury that showed on his face was still scaled down, as though his facial muscles had gone so long unused that they couldn’t contort to fit his emotional scale anymore.

“That sounds...horrible,” you finally settled on, trying not to let anything approximating pity cross your face. “I’m sorry, that must be terrible to go back to every day…”

Now his face changed to another emotion you had yet to see from him: surprise. As though it shocked him that your response to his vitrol wasn’t dismissal or even fear. You chanced reaching out, gauging his reaction before patting him lightly on the knee.

“Hopefully I make the hours you spend away from that place enjoyable,” you jeered, your smile shaky as your risky joke hung over the air. Michael’s bewilderment had settled into his usual callousness, but at least the dark air that had cast itself over his eyes had shifted to a more impassive stare.

He never bothered answering your statement, making you unsure if the silence that followed was truly awkward or not. When you began to back your chair out of the room, you tried to parse what it meant that his eyes never left yours until you were out of his sight.

**Author's Note:**

> More like this: @the-yandere-cryptid.tumblr.com

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [(You don't have to be) A ghost among the living](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17575133) by [BlueMoonRoses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonRoses/pseuds/BlueMoonRoses)




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